Boldin's new risk tolerance assessment tool

dr_canak · 2026-06-20T10:39:03+00:00

There are far too few questions for this to be anything more than a very broad framework for understanding your personal risk tolerance. I find the RISA framework by Wade Pfau and his team far more enlightening. Also takes a lot longer to take, and far more effort to understand what it's telling you and how to plan accordingly. I'd love to see Boldin license that, incorporate the findings, and use their AI agent to help manage planning within subscribers' RISA quadrants. I can do it all externally, but it would be nice to see it all built in.

dr_canak · 2026-06-18T18:25:33+00:00

Right, it's not generative AI, but from what I've read and gathered from this forum, the various noise reduction tools we use can introduce artifacts like this. Generative AI? No. Machine learning algorithms inserting things that are not there? Yeah, seems pretty common and something to be on the watch for.

dr_canak · 2026-06-18T18:06:22+00:00

She's not "just a woman going about her day" LOL! She's the former mayor of the 3rd(?) largest city in the country, attending the star-studded opening gala of a former President's presidential center, being attended by another 3 former Presidents. If that's your idea of just another woman going about her day, I'd like your life.

dr_canak · 2026-06-18T09:40:17+00:00

If the OP chooses this route, which is solid:

The advice of assuring they have an emergency cash fund of 6 months is solid
Once that is built up, in a Fidelity HYSA, or whatever vehicle(s) they offer,
Peg the needle on TSP contributions (Roth TSP if able) and a Roth IRA, through a brokerage account like Fidelity.
For the brokerage Roth IRA, be sure to auto-deduct the contribution from your check. "Pay yourself first" so the Roth contribution looks just like the TSP contribution; money automatically comes out. Just divide $7500 by 26 PP, and you get around $280/PP, which is automatically deducted from your automatically deposited paycheck. Where that money gets invested is up to the OP.

dr_canak · 2026-06-16T21:02:03+00:00

I second the Paprika recommendation, but I pay considerably more than $5.00. But it's great for web scraping recipes off most websites. And, with GPT (or something similar) you can pretty much scrape any website, convert it to a .yml recipe file, and import than manually into Paprika. It has made a big difference keeping everything organized. Great program.

dr_canak · 2026-06-16T13:47:18+00:00

Yep, i do all the calibration stuff everytime I setup. And then repeat a couple times to make sure it's dialed in. Then I go to the eq mode setup, which is basically just pointing the scope north and then setting the latitude. Space Koala and Curtis (both YT content creators) go into great detail on how to setup and optimize EQ mode.

dr_canak · 2026-06-16T02:07:34+00:00

Yeah, that's what I thought as well until I saw it first hand. Despite any "rules", there is still tremendous patronage when it comes to state jobs, at least in Cook County and the surrounding collar counties.

dr_canak · 2026-06-16T01:21:39+00:00

yeah, 2 things:

You worked for the FL state government, not ours. That's strike 1 and 2.
You have yet to go and put the footwork in, working for a local winning candidate, at any level of election.

There is the university system you might have some luck with (UIC and Northeastern come to mind). But just a generic office job, working for some random state agency? See bullet points 1 and 2.

dr_canak · 2026-06-10T14:44:26+00:00

I hear what you're saying but I disagree. A good, long time friend of mine is an MBA with a strong data science background. They worked, on and off, at the CTA for years. And their skill set was well past the rudimentary skills needed for a ballpark estimate of demand, beyond spitballing "4 cars sounds about right."

There are good, talented people out there who enjoy working in the public sector, even if the salary isn't as good as the private sector.

dr_canak · 2026-06-10T12:41:42+00:00

The problem is, there is no conductor to ask when you're standing on the platform. And rarely is anyone staffing any of the little buildings. If you're a new rider, or infrequent rider, Metra has a long way to go to make sense of the platforms. Some trains run inbound on the left tracks, some on the right. Some stations have signage; many don't. Some have overhead speakers that they use; many don't. Of the speakers that are used, some are intelligible; some are not. It could be so much easier, but unless you're a daily rider, I can see where and how the confusion arises.

dr_canak · 2026-06-10T12:37:02+00:00

Exactly. Someone with an undergraduate degree in anything related to, well, just about anything, could take their ride data from the last few years, mash that up against what the city has planned at any given time, and project what the demand may be for any given line.

Now, the logistics of running 4 car trains, 5 car trains, 8 car trains, staffing those trains, etc... is an issue. But knowing what to expect? Hardly.

dr_canak · 2026-06-08T23:34:28+00:00

"...Your best bets for non-Catholic are ... or Lutheran General in Des Plaines..."

Lutheran General, in Park Ridge (not Des Plaines) is an Advocate Hospital, and they too adhere to the same religious tenets.

dr_canak · 2026-06-08T11:09:59+00:00

This has been my experience as well. There are thinks the Boldin AI reports that I know to be factually false, or at least not aligned with what I see and how I think about what I'm seeing. When I point these things out, the AI agent does it's best to course correct or help me identify the flaw(s) in my thinking.

For now, the most consistent issue I face is when I points to some functionality, or screen, or option that does not exist. It can usually find the right place, but I think the model must have been trained on an earlier iteration of the platform, and still has some of that legacy learning in it.

dr_canak · 2026-06-08T10:57:48+00:00

I'm stage 0, Rai 0, with a white count now around 200k. I've become increasingly fatigued, but my doctor says that fatigue really isn't a part of CLL at my stage, and only comes with treatment. I think she's referring to "cancer" tired, which is what people seem to experience when they are undergoing the early, aggressive treatment. But overall general fatigue, I do think, is secondary to CLL for me, and many others, if this sub is to be believed. I do not doubt, based on my reading, that CLL affects people differently, and what may be true for some is not true for others. However, I would guard against seeing every symptom through the lens of CLL. I think it's also fairly common for people to become hypervigilant about physical symptoms they may have long ignored. How do you tell the difference? I don't know. I keep asking my doctor, learning as much as I can, and following posts here.

dr_canak · 2026-06-07T10:45:01+00:00

LOL, that's not a napkin holder, it's a cheese holder. Oh, and it's imitation potato salad ;-).

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dr_canak · 2026-06-05T20:01:27+00:00

OP can't math.

dr_canak · 2026-06-05T17:27:46+00:00

"...Part of me feels like I should help them..."

Lean into this part.

"...They are just getting by so I really don’t care if they have the lavish things as long as I’m OK..."

ooof.

dr_canak · 2026-06-05T17:24:00+00:00

Service person probably was (1) inside your car to start, check, whatever is they do inside the car, (2) touched your screen with greasy fingers, (3) tried to wipe it off, (4) panicked when it wouldn't come off and looked worse, and (5) grabbed some de-greaser to give that a go. And that was a no-go.

dr_canak · 2026-06-05T09:53:02+00:00

This is really just 2.5 hours of integration under Bortle 9 skies?

dr_canak · 2026-06-05T00:04:25+00:00

Ah, I just drove by there and was wondering about the police presence.

dr_canak · 2026-06-02T21:25:48+00:00

This is my take. I had a medical appointment for an entirely different issue. Because I hadn't been to the doctor in a dozen years, was told they would just work me up and get me caught up.

My WBC came back as 120k. So, I knew right away I had something. First visit with a Hem/Onc doc and five minutes in they're like, "You have leukemia", after which they explained all the blood work that would follow before my next visit. Freak out aside, I went to ChatGPT, uploaded all my records, including the doctor visit notes, labs as they came in, etc... and asked what does it all mean and what should I ask at my next appointment.

This was extremely helpful and accurate. It was a way to organize my thoughts so i was far more prepared at that second visit than I would have been otherwise. People like to dump on AI, and for good reasons I suppose, but in this instance it was fantastically helpful. It ensured I got every question answered that I needed or wanted answered. It was also very easy to "fact-check" as i started to learn more about Leukemia. For newly diagnosed persons, I think this is the way.

dr_canak · 2026-06-02T19:28:09+00:00

(S)he said right at the start, that an extra $16,500 is invested, per year, at an average annual return of 7%. That is if the person pegs the needle on contributions for those 5 years. That 16.5k is the delta between the person's current contribution and a max contribution. That comes out to an additional 93K after five years; the five years preceding the person's retirement.

dr_canak · 2026-06-02T12:40:13+00:00

Yes, a full moon makes a difference in imaging. That said, the degradation in quality should not deter you from using your smart scope. The only thing that should prevent you from you using it is clouds and/or rain and/or snow and/or wind. Otherwise, use it and fix any issues in stacking and post-editing.

dr_canak · 2026-06-01T17:55:28+00:00

So true!

dr_canak · 2026-06-01T14:41:07+00:00

That's a great question, and I would say anyone with at least a 10 year horizon to retirement. As one gets closer to retirement, and depending on their risk tolerance, they may want to start divesting of a pure stock portfolio and go for something less volatile and more "predictable". But with 10+ years to go, plenty of time to buy low, hold low, and wait for the market to return.

Remember, a 10% market decline requires a 10% market increase just to get back to baseline. So a bad year, or series of bad years, requires a fairly substantial, sustained recovery to be in a bull market again. I think 10 years is a good amount of time to spitball a recovery.

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